Fuyang Tay

Empty space is never truly still. It teems with tiny energy fluctuations, like a sculptor's raw clay. In a new experiment, a thin film of superconducting material was placed inside a cavity designed to trap terahertz light, a form of invisible radiation. The cavity acted as a mold, shaping the vacuum fluctuations around the film.

On a dance floor, the lights and dancers move independently: the lights flicker on their own, and people move separately. The quantum world is similar: electrons and photons rarely synchronize — this is the no-go theorem for superradiance. But add a rhythmic beat, and the dance floor comes alive.